Can you help me unfuck my diet?

[NellyBluth]

I thought this might be the best board for this.

Essentially, I just eat quite unhealthily and I'm starting to feel it. I need some ideas and inspiration - I don't want to do anything drastic, but I want some good ideas to start replacing all the bad habits and work my way towards a healthier diet. I'm starting to tell I'm eating loads of refined carbs and getting into that sugar high/dip cycle.

I'm ok with breakfast, which is generally a banana at home and then porridge later. Lunch at work I get a sandwich and have a packet of crisps - I know that isn't ideal but I try and get something like tuna or chicken salad, so that's not high up my list to change right now.

My big problems are -

Late afternoon snacks. I have lunch about one-ish. I have a decent commute home, then have to do bath time and bedtime with the toddler, so dinner isn't until 8ish. I tend to give in to biscuits and chocolate about 5 to get me through until dinner. I get quite hungry and really do want something that will last me. Is there anything other than nuts that will be a good slow burn?

Dinner. Three quarters of the time DH cooks and so I get a proper meal. But if he's at work in the evening, by the time I've got the toddler to bed I just tend to have toast or cereal or if I do cook its just pasta and a jar sauce. I really do need to have something better. I'm not a very good cook and we don't tend to have a lot in (we sort of buy what we need as we go along). I need some inspiration here!

Ditto lunches at the weekend (god I'm sounding rubbish now). Often I give DD her lunch while I do something else, and then I'm snacking on some variation of refined carbs while she's napping Her lunch will be pretty good, bread and veg, soup, something like that, but for some reason I'm out of the habit of eating those things with her. Especially as we're often out all morning so when we get in I'll serve her something really quickly. Again, I just need some inspiration for lunches for the two of us!

I think I've got into the habit of DH doing the thinking on dinner, and I need to kick myself up the arse. DD really does eat quite well for her age, she doesn't have my bad habits, but so many of the meals I make for her are sort of toddler-friendly and not something I think I want to eat. If it's just me and her for dinner I will make stew or spag bol, I'm not dire - I just can't seem to get the motivation to feed myself well, if that makes any sense?

If anyone can share any good snack and lunch tips that would be hugely appreciated.

No snacks.
Ever, at all ever.

You need to up the protein content of your meals so that you stay feeling fuller for longer.
Eggs, fish, chicken, tinned beans

Go to a charity shop and buy some of the ready Steady Cook books from the TV show - lots of fab simple ideas in under 20 minutes start to finish

drop the carbs and sugar back as much as you can
hard boiled eggs are a great snack
stir fried veg with prawns is really quick and easy
but up the protein, reduce the carbs and drink more water

I can't not snack/eat for 7 hours I mean seriously, I could eat the healthiest stir fry for lunch and still wouldn't be able to go 7 hours without any food at all.

I should do more stir fry for dinner, I always forget about those. Though are they easy to make a small enough portion for one?

I have been getting graze boxes. They have small prepared snacks. You can rate the snacks you like more.

Can you fit in a small meal between lunch and dinner?
So reduce dinner size for example and have an extra meal say 4-5pm?

nelly
yes you can, and you do - every single night.

Breakfast : plenty of fluids, scrambled egg and a bit of ham or kipper or smoked mackerel
or porridge with 1/2 milk and water and minimal sweet stuff

Mid morning : big mug of tea and a glass of water

Lunch : more fluids and then a big bowl of vegetable soup or a salad of tuna and cherry tomatoes and grated carrot and sliced peppers and nuts / seeds on top

Tea time : more to drink and a handful of nuts if needs be or a whole raw carrot in chunks

Supper : stir fry veg with fish / chicken or a BIG piece of steamed fish on a bed of veg
or shakshouka (my fave)
or a veggie chilli with loads of beans

also start thinking about stews - cheap, easy, set them running early in the day ready for supper

I am the laziest cook ever.
And I eat chicken and veg for dinner almost everyday and I don't get bored. I buy the ready make chicken breasts that have a sauce or something on them, they come in a foil tray, all supermarkets do them. I just shove them in the oven and blitz some veg in the oven with them or in the microwave.
You can put them in while your doing bathtime etc so they'll be ready immediately after.
Or I cook my own chicken and stir fry it with lots of veg, sometimes I add a bit of jar sauce, sometimes just my own spices. You can pre cook three days worth of chicken, again so easy, just shove in the oven then when its done take it off the bone. Or if thats too much work, buy chicken breasts instead so you can chop them up quickly.
Don't buy pasta, don't buy crisps and don't buy biscuits.
If you must snack have a packet of beef jerky, a hard boiled egg or a banana. You can make your own jerky if the little packets are too expensive.
I would reduce the pasta and bread as much as possible unless its brown/wholegrain. White bread and pasta has a lot of sugar in it and will make you hungrier.

I know I do when I'm asleep but during the day - nope!

I'd love to do some of these breakfast and snack ideas but I suppose the thing I left out of the my OP, which probably influences it, is that I'm at work f/t in an office with a 1.15 commute either side. So while I'd love to have a protein-heavy breakfast, there's no time for it before I leave the house and I suspect I might get sacked if I try and eat smoked mackerel in the office!

Ditto with the hard-boiled egg as a snack - I will make some to have at home on the weekends but I can't see that being enormously popular in the office or on a busy train. I hadn't thought about jerky but that's a really good idea.

I think I do need something that sort of replicates a small meal between lunch and dinner. I'm in the office till 5.30, then the 1.15 journey home which is both walk and train, in the door at 6.45, straight through bath time and bedtime with DD for the next hour. There's not an enormous amount of time there for getting much done for dinner (and being honest, as I work f/t I would rather be able to focus on DD for that hour than try and juggle food prep with seeing her.)

I do need to make more stews though, I will do that as it will last us all a few days. Must investigate a slow cooker seeing how everyone raves about them!

I'm not being negative, though I'm sure it sounds it - just weighing up what I can get away with in an office environment during the week

Make these the night before
allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/24047/savoury-muffins.aspx
and scoff them before you head out the door ;-)

What do you drink - feeling hungry is most often dehydration

You'll never change all your diet in one go. It is far too much effort to constantly think about what you should be eating and when you are going to prepare it. Start with improving 1 meal and then once that has become habit you can move onto the next meal. I was in your position after I'd had DD1 and I finally feel like I have worked out how to eat healthily (and DD1 is now 4 yrs old and there is also DD2!) without it being too much effort. Not super healthy, I would like to add but just something I am happy with.

For me, I put the effort in on a Sunday afternoon. I make granary bread in the breadmaker which I find 1 thick slice for breakfast fills me up nicely till lunchtime. I also make a big pot of tomato, pulses veg stew thing that I package up for my lunches. 3 portions go in the fridge and 2 go in the freezer. I flavour it differently every week (this week it is a chilli) but it is essentially the same ingredients. I really don't mind eating the same thing for lunch every day but I know some would. On a Sunday afternoon, while I am making the beanie stew, I also chop up all the veg for Tues and Weds evening meals (they are the most rushed in our house). I have also worked out a few evening meals which are pretty healthy and quick and fit in with our lives.

It is hard though. I think if you can just muddle through for a little while it'll get easier when your DD is a little older. DD1 now helps me with a lot of the chopping veg and loves weighing out the ingredients for the breadmaking so I don't feel like I am doing that instead of spending time with her.

Don't try and change it all at once though - life is hard work enough without beating yourself up about your diet. If you can afford it try looking at prepared veg/meat in the supermarket. Frozen onions/spiniach/peppers are often cheaper and they are already chopped.

Thanks Toowitt, I think that's what I need to do!

Number one on my list is probably beating the crisps/chocolate/biscuits habit late afternoon. I need to make an effort to drink more and I'll try some of the suggestions above like jerky and maybe a Graze box, or at least nuts etc, to find a better replacement for the afternoon. I'll try and keep more fruit at my desk to snack on as well.

I guess eating a decent lunch with DD at the weekend isn't a hard one to crack either, I only need to be a tiny bit more proactive for that one. Then once I feel I've got a handle on snacking throughout the day, I'll focus on evening meals. It's only a few meals out of a fortnight, I'll live.

I want to do this gradually so I don't feel like I'm suddenly on a diet - I want to learn good habits that I'll genuinely just start doing.

(Thanks for sharing, it's good to hear someone else was in this boat - between work and DD, food's become fuel for me and I've not been caring what I've been putting into my body at all)

You need to figure out some light easy suppers for
Yourself. I always have some rye bread in the fridge (lasts ages) and when I'm having lunch on my own (or dinner as in your situation) just quickly top it with something.

Eg avocado, cucumber, lime and sesame seeds

Sometimes make a big thing of something like hummus or muhamra (sp) and have that to spread quickly on. Sometimes have muhamra with a bit of goats cheese and a big handful of spinach and maybe some cucumber or roast tomatoes on rye bread. Muhamra is SO delicious and keeps for ages.

Do you like eggs? Omelettes are so fab and easy for a super quick dinner.

Also have a big thing of quinoa or brown rice, bulgur etc in the fridge.

Then you can throw that together with some dressing (muhamra can turn into dressing as well!), spinach, a tin of cannellini beans, nuts, seeds etc. less than ten mins prep.

Baked sweet potato. Can do in microwave. Top with salad stuff. Good ol spinach etc

Oh and agree to do it gently. Do agree with PP that it's grreat not to snack but it's too much to crash from snacking a lot into going from lunch until dinner without snacking if it's what your body is used to.

Thanks Halogenaque. I don't think I like avocado but it's one of those things I don't eat because I don't think I like it - I need to try it again to make sure! Maybe I'll actually love it

I forget about omelettes but yes, I like them and that with some frozen veg would probably be a decent tea. For the rice and quinoa, how do you prepare it so it keeps in the fridge - is it simply cook it and then eat it cold? I'm not organised or proactive enough to make lunch everyday, but if it's there in the fridge that would help a lot.

It would be so nice not to snack much! I do understand that my very sugary-carby diet means I get the crashes so I feel I need to snack when I probably don't. Though I never eat big meals, so I think naturally I'm a grazer rather than being one of those people who can just have three decent meals a day.

Do you have facilities to heat stuff up for lunch at work? If so you can take in packets of brown rice to heat up with a homemade sauce on top, or Jacket pot with salad and topping. We don't do it as much now, but cooking up a big pot of bolognaise can be changed into shepherds pie, chilli, as well as with pasta. We have soup or picnic style lunches at the weekend. Roast a bigger chicken at the weekend, and use leftovers for curry with a jar of sauce on Monday.

Rice is more tricky and while I'd eat it cold I think the advice is to reheat it to absolutely piping piping hot.

But quinoa can be made in advance and just dipped into. Boil it and keep in a Tupperware in fridge.

I have only dieted once (although do try and watch what I eat now) and found it really really difficult the first few days and then was absolutely amazed and how much less hungry I felt. I had always been a starving as soon as I wake kind of person. Then found I was able to wait until I was at work to have my breakfast. Have a small bowl of soup for lunch (no bread etc) then maybe a satsuma for a snack and a normal dinner. I'm not like that any more but now I know I could go back to it.

Try the rye bread with some different toppings (although avocado is the best!) it's such an easy meal.

I haven't read the whole thread.

I eat five meals a day, kind of, and it works for me. No matter how much protein I eat with a meal, I cannot go 7 hours between meals either.

A typical day for me:
8am sugar-free homemade muesli and rice milk, green tea
11am pot of natural yoghurt, handful of nuts, piece of fruit, square of dark chocolate (85%), coffee with milk
2pm two slices wholemeal bread (bread machine) toasted with poached eggs or tinned sardines, or a sandwich (ham, cheese, smoked salmon & avocado, that type of thing) with some cherry tomatoes on the side, an orange, square of dark chocolate
5pm green tea, piece of fruit, slice of cheese
7.30pm dinner - cooked from scratch but not necessarily very fancy, could be jacket potato with some chilli on top, saus & mash, soup & bread, chicken curry with brown rice, chorizo & chickpea stew & rice, pork chops & mash

If I can give one piece of advice it is this: ORGANISATION IS KEY

I meal-plan once a week and I always know in advance what I'm going to eat in a day. I have only healthy stuff in the house. I never count calories but I do try to get maximum nutrition out of everything.

Another thing, I eat with the DCs so that I'm not spending too much time in the kitchen.

BTW my BMI is 21 and stable. I don't go hungry and I don't feel deprived.

Good luck, you're in a bit of a rut and that's normal - it took me a long time to find my own system!

I love dal so quick and so filling you can buy small thermos soup canisters with a spoon I got two for dc from Asda I think they were thermos flask king for soup. They might work for office lunch and a banana, no idea if Bombay mix is healthy but I love the stuff by cofresh a small amount fills me up or you could roast some chickpeas instead of crisps they last well in a sealed container.

I also love curry quick and easy to make for yourself also cauliflower egg fried rice is really quick.

Rice cakes with peanut butter make a good snack, halva is lovely or sesame snaps.

Fish dishes are also quick, maybe crab salad or wraps.

My worst habit is not eating when dh works away and I'm SAHM so I can see how hard it is. Just keep lots of ready to go food to hand frozen veg, tinned pulses, frozen fish, rice noodles to throw into some soup if you've got miso you can knock up a quick tasty broth in seconds. Maybe keep your favourite meat marinated and ready to cook or marinated tofu. Tinned potatoes ready to mash and put on top of a pie, or quick grains like cous cous or quinoa or cornmeal.

Organisation is key

Good god, don't say that! That's the one thing lacking at the moment!

I like the sound of yoghurt and nuts, I could try that too. It's acceptable to eat at your desk at my work, but I'm sure there is a limit to what I can sneak past as a 'snack' late in the afternoon. I would much prefer the day you describe but it's hard to do when you have to arrange it around a fixed one-hour lunchbreak.

I'll try the rye bread too - DH makes our own bread anyway so I might suggest he tries that as well as sourdough.

(I do have to stress that this isn't all the time, when DH is cooking I get a lovely, proper, fresh meal with plenty of vegetables! I suspect it's after my run or three-four days without his nice home cooked meals in the evening that my poor diet really starts to make itself felt!)

Instead of a Jaffa Cake, I have just had a peach Go me!

I often muse that i should go on the 'eat the way I feed my kid' diet plan. I pack a lovely snack and lunch for him, if I got myself a lunchbox and made me one too, I wouldn't end up eating what I shouldn't, because i would have a better option waiting. Your dd & my ds eat well because we feed them well. But somehow, we never just make twice as much and feed us too. I mean, even if the same sized serving as we give them isn't an adult sized meal, it is still a better snack than what we feed ourselves a bit later. If we ate a snack of child sized serving of soup and bread then we would at least be that wee bit ahead nutritionally when they are in bed and we succumb to our bad snack habits. And lets admit, a child plus adult sized serving would hardly take a moment longer, since we are doing it anyway.

So, that's my suggestion. At home or anytime you have to make or pack food for your child, give yourself the same.

As for your afternoon snack need: your lunch is not good enough. Ditch the chips and add some veg and fruit to digest slowly and help you stay full. And check your hydration levels: thirst sometimes registers as hunger.

Exactly, Momagain! I manage to do that with DD's dinners - if it's just us eating then I will cook us something decent. But somehow for lunch it all falls apart. She doesn't have anything exciting, it might just be the toddler standard of bread, ham, cheese and cucumber but you're right, it's a hell of a lot better than what I then eat later!

I like that idea. If she eats something, I'll eat it some of it too.

You mentioned you have a sandwich and crisps at lunchtime. Ditch the crisps - they're not providing you with any nutritional value at all. You could replace them with a couple of cherry tomatos, carrot sticks, a small piece of fruit or a few nuts.
On the nights you eat alone, how about a pea and mint frittata with steamed broccoli. Put the broccoli on to steam first (takes about 10 minutes).
Then stirfry some frozen peas in a little bit of butter. Beat 2 or 3 eggs, a tablespoon of yoghurt and a teaspoon of dried mint together. Add to the peas and cook slowly (takes about 5 minutes). I finish mine under the grill, because runny eggs freak me out, but it's up to you. You can also experiment with other veg and flavours.
A complete meal, packed full of nutrition, ready in around 10 minutes.

Try Low-Carb Bootcamp on here. I hardly ever snack anymore because my meals are making me full but more importantly keeping me full, even though I'm eating much less than I was.

I am not an organised person and I certainly never thought I could go without sugar, potatoes, pasta etc but I am and I feel all the better for it.

I think I agree with hippotooth! I don't have a perfect system or diet, but it's getting better as I get older and as we get busier, as I think my stress levels with full time work and two busy kids would be off the scale if I wasn't organised.

I would:

• meal plan. Sit down one night/hour a week with your diary to hand and list of things you're low of in the cupboards. Then plan the next seven meals plus stuff for lunches, order online and repeat each week. Its a dull chore but feels good when finished. Put the list up in kitchen. Gives you a brilliant sense of control to not worry about what's in or not in the fridge.

• clear crap out of the cupboards. This is what I'm finding tough. I'm in the process or rethinking my snacks too. I think my metabolisms pretty high and i need to snack too. i'm planning on keeping in only one big pack of digestives, a box of mixed nuts, dried fruit of different kinds, and one bar of high % dark choc for the evenings. No more crisps, packets of chocolate fingers, massive bars of dairy milk. If I haven't bought that crap, I eat so much better, as suddenly when you need sugar a peach or a yogurt looks tasty!

• be realistic about snacks. Enjoy healthy snacks (nuts, oatcakes with honey, dried fruit, chunks of cheese etc) and remember those squares of dark chocolate to come when you crash on the sofa in the evening!!! Life would be v dull without just one indulgence.

• I'm going to start taking pots of Brazil's and almonds to work as we eat tons of biscuits there at the moment, bananas, etc

-I HATE cooking lunch too, the most boring meal of the day. I cook a fresh tea daily, proper good stuff, but hate cooking lunch. I resort to omelette, pasta and pesto and soup, soup, soup (spend a weekend hour batch cooking it and portion it out) as I detest the cheese/ham sandwich thing.

• freeze stuff. If I cook something with a sauce or a stew, make it automatic to double up each time and freeze a dinner. (Order meat on deals and build it into weekly meal plan)

By no means have I got this all sorted yet, but honestly, meal planning removes all that stress and tension about 'what the hell do I eat tonight?' Which is not pleasant after a manic day.

Ps I think what the previous poster said is true, that when they are very little, you kind of muddle by, but there comes a point when cooking a toddler tea and another grown up tea becomes silly and then you just seem to get more organised, which means a bit healthier too, so don't beat yourself up. Baby steps!!!!

Couldn't you pack something like a peanut butter sandwich and and apple for the train home? If you eat then, you shouldn't be too starving so healthy choices might be easier to make :)

I could never go without snacks. I totally agree you need to go lower carb, high protein if you want to be less hungry, eat healthily and be a healthy weight. Don't be afraid of fat, provided you are not eating or drinking loads of sugar you won't put on weight and it's really filling, and necessary for health.

My mid afternoon snacks tend to be hummus with carrot and/or whole grain bread, or full-fat yoghurt with a small whole piece of fruit (never juice) and nuts, or cheese and oatcakes, maybe with an apple. Always protein, fat and some slow-release carbs. I never eat sugary things/white flour/crisps etc on their own as I'll be starving shortly after once my insulin has spiked and dropped again.

The best thing I ever did was stop drinking juice and sugary drinks. I am much less hungry and snack on rubbish much much less. I've tried to go really low carb but felt really tired. I know it works really well for some, but it doesn't seem to suit me. However, keeping to whole grains really helps. Quinoa and brown basmati are both really filling. Sweet potatoes are weirdly much better than ordinary ones as they spike insulin much less. If you have porridge make sure it's unrefined oats, not ready brek etc. I don't find it takes more organisation tbh, just different shopping habits. Good luck!